Minli Virdone

Informal conversation with Minli (I know. I need a tripod)

Minli: Okay.

Sal: So I'm here with Minli.

What do you do here at the Kahn Academy?

Minli: I'm the Lead of Strategic Initiatives at Kahn Academy.

Sal: And what are some of these initiatives

that are strategic?

Minli: The initiatives that are strategic include;

number one, our summer camp, so we're running

a summer camp this year that is going to be

in Palo Alto, it's called The Discovery Lab,

that's one of the strategic initiatives.

Sal: And why are we doing this?

Minli: Well, I think the big reason why is that

we're known for online education.

We are known to do the work in the classroom

so that teachers can free up time to do projects.

One of the constant feedbacks that we get

from teachers is that they don't know

what projects to do in the classroom

now that the time is freed up.

One of the intents of the summer camp is

to identify what are the projects that are fun,

that are also educational and interesting;

not forced education, like truly interesting ...

Sal: Not paint by numbers ...

Minli: Not paint by numbers, and people actually

find that they actuallylearn something from it.

So identify what those projects are and feel that out online.

Sal: So it's kind of a "discovery lab" for

all involved, the kids will discover ...

Minli: Yes, and then we will discover.

Sal: And then we'll discover what works,

what's not, what's an idea appropriate

for different ages and ...

Minli: Yeah.

Sal: And things like that.

What kind of stuff are we all looking at to do?

Minli: We are doing a variety of things.

One big thing is that we're going to do

a lot of robotics activities with,

they go by [unintelligible], so they go about

learning about the mechanical structures of robots,

learning about the sensors; how so you use sensors?

And then probably doing some big competition

like we did a couple years ago.

Sal: Lego Sumo Wrestling.

Minli: Lego Sumo Wrestling was ...

Sal: The kids, it's amazing what they did.

They did a lot more than I would have expected.

Minli: And it's the Olympics this year which ...

Sal: Oh, okay.

Minli: Which is even better (laughs) so

we can make it very [unintelligible].

Robotics is a big piece.

The second big piece is all the Math and Music stuff

that [Vai] does, so Vai and I had gone to

a classroom a couple months ago and we did

a lot of creating platonic sonnets,

creating geometric shapes with students

and giving them the intuition behind the Math.

Sal: Right, the tangible, especially 3-dimensional

Mathematics and 3-dimensional Geometry,

it's kind of hard to really get a tangible sense

without it being tangible.

Minli: Yeah, exactly. We talk about things like

the triangle being the strongest shape;

why is the triangle the strongest shape?

Let's put one together and let's put a square together,

let's try to twist and turn it, and then you realize,

"Oh, this is why a triangle is stronger."

Sal: Right, so they believe and also get

kind of an intuition for it.

And some of the other stuff like

random games and simulations.

Minli: Yeah, exactly. I'm going to do lots of

games and simulations from the secondary training markets

that you did and some sort of economics training

I'm trying to make up right now, so it'll be fun.

Sal: That's exciting.

Minli: I would want to go to this camp.

(laughing)

So I interrupted you ...

Minli: Yup.

Sal: So camp is one thing.

Minli: Camp is one thing, and the second thing is

in Generalized International Strategy,

so how do we work with international partners

or international schools who want to use Kahn Academy.

Sal: So there are people outside of ...

So what's going on?

You just went on a recent trip.

Minli: Yes, I went on a recent trip.

There are many things going on.

I think generally when people hear about

Kahn Academy, they're excited, which is great for us,

so there's a lot of pull of wanting to use

Kahn Academy in schools outside.

Sometimes it's just a matter of getting people

up to speed or just saying,

"Here's how you can do this really easy,"

and then just getting them started.

That's one thing, but then the other bigger

implementations that people are doing for example,

just last week I was in the state of Senora in Mexico.

They are giving out one laptop per child,

a PC to each student, then they're also providing

internet access.

Sal: Each student in the state of Senora?

Minli: Each student in the state.

Sal: There's like 300,000 students or something.

Minli: Yeah, so they're providing each student

with a computer and they're starting with 10,000 first,

and I saw it just last week,

each computer is labeled with the child's name

and a serial number so they can track all the computers.

They're also providing internet access as a

constitutional right; and on top of that,

in their portal, they have put Kahn Academy content,

both in Spanish and in English, so that the

students can access the content, so that's an example.

Sal: So these aren't just urban students,

the middle class, you saw kids ...

Minli: We started off at a really indigenous location,

which was called [Beckham] and these are students,

it's their first time using computers,

so they're going to have to learn computer

literacy and then show them some of the

Kahn Academy content, they're intrigued by it.

I think it's just a big change process from there.

That's one ... Other organizations,

South Africa, there's a couple of organizations,

they're doing the translations into the native language

and they're doing an after school program

that's really interesting ... Doing offline implementation.

There are a lot of exciting things going on

on the international front ... Mostly volunteer-driven.

Sal: Wow. How did you end up here?

Minli: I was excited by the mission the first time

I heard about Kahn Academy and my background is

I spent a couple years in social welfare in

the Singapore government really focused in

on low-income families ...

Sal: That's where you grew up, Singapore?

Minli: Singapore is where I grew up.

I was there for the first 20 years of my life.

Sal: You also taught in Singapore.

Minli: I did. I taught high school Math and

I had about 200 something, almost 300 students.

Sal: 300 students that you were teaching at ...

Minli: No, in separate classes during

the same amount of time.

Sal: You taught high school Math in Singapore

and also worked for the government.

Minli: The government, with low income family policy,

focus on education and child care.

I always felt like I needed to give back in some way.

After that, I went to McKinsey and Company and

I did some management consulting work.

Sal: You were a hot shot consultant.

Minli: I attempted to be, but after five plus years of that,

I decided to revert back and this was

a good place to merge the two experiences.

Sal: What's it been like so far?

Has it been what you expected?

Is it different, better, worse?

Minli: I keep telling everyone I know,

which can be annoying sometimes,

but I tell them it's the best job I've ever had.

I love this job.

Sal: You say that even when I'm not in the room?

Minli: I say it, yes. I say that constantly.

I say it on my Facebook page, I think my friends

might start getting annoyed about that, but

I truly believe ...

Sal: But why is that other than

our very good vacation policy?

(laughter)

Minli: I think it's the fact that it's

a good team of people who are truly passionate

about making a change.

I think the change that we're trying to make

is of such scale ... We're 25 people right now

and we're heading 4.5 million unique users a month.

That's huge scale and I get excited about

the fact that the things I do will impact

this group of students or actually not just students,

people around the world who just want

to learn something different.

Sal: What's your sense of, like the summer camp,

this is going to affect, there were over

a hundred students this summer, how does that

affect the scale?

Minli: I think if we are very clear in our minds

that yes, it is targeted towards the

[unintelligible] group of students right now,

but the intention is that these learning things

that we find from the summer camp will be

scaled out on a website and therefore

available to the millions of students.

That's how we're scaling the findings

from the summer camp.

Sal: What's your sense, where do you want to

see all of this going, especially you were

a teacher in Singapore, a lot of people

hold up Singapore as kind of, it doesn't seem like

it has a very good education system.

What do you think was working there,

what would you like to see more of,

what do you think ...

Minli: I think in general, just as a teacher

whether you're in Singapore in a good education system,

and I was teaching in a fairly good school,

but even then you had levels of disparity,

even within the classrooms and across the classrooms.

I always felt that when I went into the classroom,

it was like you just give a big, sort of sigh

and you go, "All right everybody! Follow me!"

and you're like, "Yes! Come on everyone!

Let's learn Math together!"

It was hard, even in a really good school with

very good students because you knew that

you were addressing the needs for that student,

you knew that student was getting lost,

you knew that student was bored,

but you were trying your best to do all of that

and just perform in front of the class and

keep everyone entertained in the 15 minutes

that you got, right?

I think regardless of where the teacher is,

many teachers have this issue that

they have to deal with.

I think Kahn Academy helps you do that quite a bit

because you eliminate the fact that you need to

have to entertain the entire class in one way

and one way only, everyone gets to go

at their own pace and then you can track

where everyone is so you can intermediate.

Otherwise, it's hard to understand where it is

that you really should focus in your time.

Sal: Yeah, very cool.

Minli: Yeah.